Series: “Showing Love in an Age of Outrage”
Part 1
“Christ in Our Missions!”
Pastor Jerry
————————————- Message Synopsis ————————————-
Everywhere we look, we see anger—anger towards others, anger towards Christians, anger by Christians—anger everywhere.
In the last few years we have entered a new age—an age of outrage—one defined by anger, division, and hostility amplified by new technology and social media. Outrage is all around, so we have to discern how to walk through this. To be sure, there is a lot in this world that is outrage inducing.
What do we do when the anger becomes too much? How are we to show love in an age of outrage. I believe Christians should live and look differently because they are being sent on a mission in the world by Christ. That’s what I want to explain today.
We’re sent by God on a mission. A mission is to tell the truth and to love people. Today, I want to specifically give you four Biblical truths.
(1) Number one, the Christian life is a mission trip.
Mission is God’s big redemptive plan in the world for the cause of Christ. Jesus, in John chapter 20, (after Jesus was resurrected) finds the disciples hiding from the authorities. It says Jesus appears to them where they were in hiding. He shows them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord, but not all of them are convinced that he has been resurrected. Then Jesus says to them, vs.21, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” So 2,000 years ago, to a group of people in an upper room hiding from the authorities, Jesus said to them, “As the Father has sent me, I’m sending you.”
This means 2,000 years later, Jesus is still talking to people around the world saying, “As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.” In doing so, we recognize that we are sent. You, if you’re a follower of Jesus, are sent by Jesus on mission. Your life is a mission trip.
If what Jesus said to the disciples then is true now, how do we respond? Well, God’s always been a sender. It’s part of his very nature. God sends his people, so our response is simple. It’s what Isaiah said. He said, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”
Can I get you to say that aloud with me? Let’s say it together. Here I am, Lord, send me. Now, by saying that, we’re responding to the call of Jesus, right? Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, even so send I you.” We say, “Here I am, Lord, send me.”
When God’s mission gets ahold of your life, you’re willing to live differently in this culture of outrage that what we’re seeing around the world. Christians live and look differently because they’re on a loving mission. There’s a growing age of division around the world. There’s not a place where there’s not division in the country, where there’s not brokenness and anger and frustration. It’s all around the world. It’s political, yes, but it’s cultural in so many other places. It’s financial in other places.
(2) What do we do? Number two is Christians live and look differently.
As our culture becomes more broken and sick, the more loving we become, the more attractive we will be. In a society of anger and division, racism, polarization, meanness, rudeness, fear, disrespect and hopelessness, the Christ-like values of peace and unity, kindness, compassion, just courtesy, respect, and more, shine even more.”
As a church rather than trying to be like culture to attract people, today in the world in which we live, we’ve got to live and look differently than the world around us. Some churches look different than the world, but too often people live the same. We need to live and to look differently because we’re followers of Jesus.
Philippians 2, 14-15, says, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.”
This passage really gives us three ways to live and look differently. Tell the truth and love people by sharing and showing the love of Jesus and work for peace in this age of outrage. How? Our first response is without grumbling. “Do everything without grumbling or arguing.”
I John 4:16-17 lays it out for us so beautifully. “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them, and as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.” The more you love Jesus, the more you will look like Jesus’ love.
Today around the world we are being taught that when somebody punches at you, you punch back harder. That’s not the way of Jesus. The more you love Jesus, the more you’ll look like Jesus’ love. Do you know what that means? That means our second response is we’re going to end up standing out.
Philippians 2:14-15 says, “so that you may become blameless and pure.” That’s the character of Christ lived out in our lives in the power of the Holy Spirit. “Children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Now, here’s the reality. We could say today, 2022, this is a warped and crooked generation in every place around the world, but this was 2,000 years ago they were saying this. Here’s the reality. Every time, every culture, is a warped and crooked generation that Jesus shows a better way. He shows a different way.
You know that when you’re out in the darkest place, you can actually see the stars more. As the culture around us gets more dark and divided and broken, and we don’t really know where this ends in all these places around the world. The world’s in a tumultuous time. What we know is that this time, the light of Jesus will shine more clearly if his people will stand out in the light of the gospel in the midst of the darkness.
Now, the question is will we? God called us to stand out, to look different by our lives. The Message says in Romans 12:2, “Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. There’s a whole world of people being discipled and spiritually shaped by their cable news and social media choices they’re being feed.
It says, “Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll then be changed from the inside out, readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,”
Social media, 10 years old was a major experience on the smart phone, but social media has become a place where so many Christians have damaged their witness by not standing up for the gospel, but by standing out for all the vitriol and the anger that they’re posting against people they don’t like or don’t agree with them.
Next, our 3rd response is holding firm. Philippians 2:15, says, “As you hold firmly to the word of life.” There’s a lot of ways we can hold firmly. I want you to know there are times because you believe Jesus died on the cross for our sin and in our place, and you really believe that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” That is not popular in our day.
But when we hold firm, we’re holding firm to what we believe about the gospel, about the Scriptures, about so many things that flow from there, but we’re also holding firm to how we live. Look at Philippians 1:27. It says, “Whatever happens, conduct yourselves,” conduct, right, conduct yourselves, your conduct, “conduct yourselves in a matter worthy of the gospel.”
Do your neighbors hear your name and say, “He conducts himself in a manner worthy of the gospel”? Paul goes on to say, “Then, whenever I come, whether I come to see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit by your conduct, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel.”
Some people think that spiritual maturity is that you know a lot of obscure Bible trivia. You can know the Bible, but if you’re not living a life that’s characterized by living and looking differently because Christ is in you, you’re not spiritually mature. Spiritual maturity is not measured just by knowledge. It’s measured by life transformation. Christians live and look differently because they’re on a mission.
(3) Number three is living as ambassadors. 2 Corinthians 5:20, says, “So we are Christ’s ambassadors. God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, come back to God.” We are Christ’s ambassadors. What do ambassadors do? They share and show the love of Jesus. This is not our home. We’re of a kingdom that’s not of this world. We represent as the king’s ambassadors. We share and show the love of Jesus. Ambassadors share and show the love of Jesus. There are people around the world, who being an ambassador for Christ has cost them their lives.
Tell the truth. Love people by sharing and showing the love of Jesus and work for peace in the age of outrage.
(4) The fourth point is to end up looking like Jesus. Being Christians changed the world. In the first century, many people came to Christ. The Christian church actually began to grow based around this crazy idea in I John 4 which says. “We love because he first loved us.”
In 252 A.D a devastating plague hits the region. Bishop Cyprian decided that the Christians, who had often been persecuted, would be brought into the center of town. He said, “If we’re going to do what Jesus did, so that through his poverty we might become rich, I call you,” he says, “to give personal and financial aid, care and comfort to all according to their need, not their faith.” He said, “We’re going to care for the sick and the dying.”
Do you know what happened when plagues came in the ancient days? People would burn everything, homes. Sometimes burn with them dead in it. That’s the only way they knew how to protect themselves. Then Cyprian gets the Christians together and says, “That’s not going to be our focus. We are going to share and show the love of Jesus as more a concern for them than for ourselves.” That got people’s attention.
About a century later there was an emperor named Julian the apostate, he was a pagan emperor, and he says, “Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated followers of Jesus devote themselves to works of charity. He says these followers of Jesus not only feed their own poor, but ours also, welcoming them into their agape,” their love.
I want us to be known as a follower of Jesus. The world may not like everything that we believe today, and it’s probably going to get worse, not better. The world may resist as we seek to share the good news of the gospel, but we’re going to serve them in the name of Jesus anyway. You can share and show the love of Jesus, and Christians live and look differently because they’re on this showing love mission.
You tell the truth and love people. You share and show the love of Jesus in an age of outrage. I want to be like Jesus, so that the world says, “They don’t follow after the evil of this age. They follow Jesus, who changed them and changes everything.”